Ark Encounter Watch web site to track park’s progress and controversy

I’ve created a new web site, arkencounterwatch.com, to track the progress and construction of Answers in Genesis’s latest assault on common sense and good taste, the Ark Encounter theme park. I’ll aggregate news stories, blog posts, and other coverage on one site where visitors can survey reactions from the media, the public, and other sources.

Anyone coming across information related to Ark Encounter can forward it to me for posting, skip (AT) penguinsites (DOT) com.

Also on the site is a modest challenge. Mr. Ham, why not spend that hundred million plus proving what you’ve so adamantly insisted all these years: prove the Ark is physically possible. If you can build the vessel using the same methods Noah is supposed to have used, load it up with approximately the same number of animals, and eight people can successfully care for them on the water for the same length of time the flood was supposed to have taken I’ll be the first to start tithing to your museum.

And we’ll even grant you success even in calmer waters than must have existed if the catastrophic flood really happened. On the other hand, if the eight people die from suffocation under massive piles of every kind of animal poop imaginable, they will be honored martyrs for the cause, no matter how bad they smell at their funerals.

As I, and others, have mentioned on other websites, this may be as close as they come to doing an actual experiment, and the building of the ark should be encouraged. Keep pushing that challenge to Ken Ham, or anyone who will listen. If they’re so sure they’re right, then this is a good opportunity to demonstrate the possibility of one of the stories.

Personally, I’d like to see some of the tv charlatans get swallowed by a big fish to see if the tale of Jonah in the belly of a fish for three days is plausible.

btw, if the Ark project proves too difficult or expensive, then perhaps they could try building the Ark of the Covenant instead–that way, they wouldn’t need to change too much on their letterhead or websites.

Fire, materials and design
The fire started around 7:30 pm in a small kiosk adjacent to the centre’s mini-golf course. Eventually the burning kiosk slumped against the exterior of the building. This part of the building was clad in a bitumen-coated steel material called Galbestos, which had limited fire-resistance qualities. This set fire to the interior sound-proofing material, which also had poor fire-resistance qualities, causing an explosion which ignited the highly flammable acrylic sheeting which covered the rest of the building. The fire spread quickly across the sheeting on the leisure centre walls and roof, and through vents which were not properly fire proofed. The acrylic melted, which allowed more oxygen to enter and dropped burning melted material, both starting other fires and injuring those trying to escape. The building’s open-plan design included many unblocked internal spaces that acted as chimneys adding to the conflagration.

If you can build the vessel using the same methods Noah is supposed to have used, load it up with approximately the same number of animals, and eight people can successfully care for them on the water for the same length of time the flood was supposed to have taken I’ll be the first to start tithing to your museum.

Please make sure the 8 people are creationists. It’s a wonderful way to demonstrate your faith.

I don’t know how you can tell if it’s built to Biblical specifications since, AFAIK, nobody’s quite sure how big a cubit was. From the Bible you could get the ratio of the length to the width but not the actual size of the vessel.

I have seen it advertised as a ‘full-scale’ reproduction including, apparently, seaworthiness.

At 1/6th the biblical surface area it appears to be built on a modern barge (steel I’ll bet).

Interesting… sort of. This will make a good link for arkencounterwatch.com, but they definitely cheated with the huge steel base, or whatever that is. And where are all the animals? If they floated that thing around Europe full of the requisite animal population it would stink up something fierce and probably not be too popular.

Imagine every time they pulled into a port and had to remove all the dead carcasses of the animals that croaked since the last stop. That would make the kiddies really want to go on board!

Skip said:
Mr. Ham, why not spend that hundred million plus proving what you’ve so adamantly insisted all these years: prove the Ark is physically possible. If you can build the vessel using the same methods Noah is supposed to have used, load it up with … etc …

That’s a pointless request. When they fail, it will be proof that it was a miracle, and so just end up reinforcing their belief that the whole thing is true.

They’ve been claiming for years that the ark was physically, scientifically possible. The magical miracle was the rain that drowned all the sinners of all ages, so that Jehovah could get them into Hell on an accelerated schedule.

Unfortunately, my ethical system argues against cruelty to animals.

Otherwise, I’d try to organize a group to build an ark, or buy that one off that guy in the Netherlands, load below decks with animals, and challenge eight creationists to crew it up and spend forty days in it on the high seas.

No, there is no RSS feed on the new site, but it’s been something I’ve been wanting to add to the core system, penguinsites.com, my web hosting platform, for a while. So maybe this will be a good time to write one. I’ll look into that.

So math and science will continue to go down the tube in the United States (see below).

Response #1: Obama says all we need is a Sputnik moment, whatever the hell that is.

Response #2: God will save us all with a new Ark that will hold selected individuals to be named later. And rest assured, folks like those in KY and LA are doing their best to bring those scores down even more.

“The three-yearly OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) report, which compares the knowledge and skills of 15-year-olds in 70 countries around the world, ranked the United States 14th out of 34 OECD countries for reading skills, 17th for science and a below-average 25th for mathematics.”

I have an objection to your experiment!!! What did those poor animals do to deserve being locked up for a year with a bunch of creationists. How would you feel being in close quarters with a bunch of 4th century BC nut cases. The animal didn’t do a thing to deserve treatment like that. Why don’t we just put two of every kind of creationist in there with food and water for a year and see what happens.(I’ll bet there’s more than a few commandments broken before they’re done)

Politicians will ask for a glass of water, and when you offer them a mug, will say: “I asked for a GLASS of water.”

this whole ark business is a tremendous waste of money, effort, and time.

frankly, I find it more tragic than humorous.

One of the responses to Sputnik was to try improving our educational system. That generated a backlash that institutionalized the attack on science; evolution in particular.

Now, after over 50 years, we have these well-funded anti-science institutions in place that can move on a dime to discredit any science they don’t like.

And with governmental and other secular institutions overloaded with the effects of increasing population and economic strain, we see more hucksters capitalizing on fear, frustration, and ignorance in order to make money.

One of the clearest indicators that Ham and organizations like his have nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus is that these organizations make little effort to relieve hunger and suffering let alone engage in the process of educating people and enabling them to adapt to changing job opportunities and global economies.

Looking at the Dutch exercise in stupidity I note that the builder used steel cross braces and iron beam hangers. The hull appears to be clinker planked - not carvel built and, according to Wikipedia, was built over a steel frame; evidence confirming or denying the wiki article would be welcome. Given these weaknesses I would expect the Huiber’s vessel to float all of 2 hours before going under.

Mr Ham’s monstrous erection will probably require large quantities of steel and concrete in the construction of the hull as well as the base, will certainly include unbiblical screws, bolts and modern glues.

On a side note the largest seaworthy wooden ship ever was possibly a barge - Caligula’s giant ship at 104 metres, the largest practicable wooden vessel was the Wyoming at 100 metres. It twisted and buckled requiring constant pumping. Both these were carvel built.

Is there no bogus pseudoscience crap that you won’t swallow to help prop up your shaky YECism? How about Ancient Astronauts? Are there Bigfoots (Bigfeet?)? Flying saucers? Piloted by demons? A “Bible Code”? Symbolism about the End of the World in the Great Pyramid or elsewhere? Is homeopathy biblically approved?

I read much here about how the Noah’s Ark story is impossible. However, evolutionists only consider Darwinian methods and since it would be impossible be these methods it would be impossible. However, intelligent design theory could provide an explanation of how this could occur.

Hey Canine Puke: Were there dinosaurs on the Ark? If not, why not? If so, what was the point in saving them if they were going to be extinct in a few years anyway? And when do you reckon they went extinct?

Or do you agree with Hovind that they’re still alive somewhere in darkest Africa?

If you check their website http://arkencounter.com/ the illustration shows at least 19 people working on the ark plus stupidly designed cranes and scaffolding, presumably with people operating them. Did Noah just shut the door on all his loyal slave co-workers?

OK, if they ever get this started the plans will have to be submitted for approval. How many tons of steel and concrete will they have to include just to meet building safety standards and to stop the idiotic mess just falling down? Perhaps someone could hold a sweepstake.

If you check their website http://arkencounter.com/ the illustration shows at least 19 people working on the ark plus stupidly designed cranes and scaffolding, presumably with people operating them. Did Noah just shut the door on all his loyal slave co-workers?

One explanation I’ve heard from fundies (who seem to make up ad hoc explanations as they go along) is that Noah hired as much help as he needed, but the construction workers were wicked unbelievers who privately mocked Noah even as they pocketed his shekels. So when the Flood drowned them, they had it coming and there was nothing wrong for Noah not to take them on board as well.

Another approach was seen in the somewhat similar situation depicted in the movie WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE. All the workers building the rocket knew that the Earth was doomed and the rocket could take only a few people to safety, but they were motivated by the prospect of everyone having an equal chance in a lottery at the end to select the passengers. As I recall, even having made the agreement, the losers still didn’t take losing very well…

I read much here about how the Noah’s Ark story is impossible. However, evolutionists only consider Darwinian methods and since it would be impossible be these methods it would be impossible. However, intelligent design theory could provide an explanation of how this could occur.

Hey Canine Puke: Were there dinosaurs on the Ark? If not, why not? If so, what was the point in saving them if they were going to be extinct in a few years anyway? And when do you reckon they went extinct?

Or do you agree with Hovind that they’re still alive somewhere in darkest Africa?

So why do the Ica stones only depict Tyrannosaurus, Triceratops, Stegosaurus, Apatosaurus and Pteranodon, prehistoric animals that have never left any trace or remains in Peru?

Why are there no indigenous prehistoric animals depicted on the Ica stones, like Icadyptes or Livyatan?

Why is there no trace of the civilization that created the Ica stones?

Why is that the locals constantly sell the Ica stones to tourists when Peruvian laws make it quite clear that buying and selling ancient artifacts is a crime punishable by fines and lengthy jail time for both buyer and seller?

“Why is that the locals constantly sell the Ica stones to tourists when Peruvian laws make it quite clear that buying and selling ancient artifacts is a crime punishable by fines and lengthy jail time for both buyer and seller?”

Are you implying they’re FORGERIES? I’m shocked–shocked I say! Next you’ll be telling me that the Rolex I bought for $2 in Tienanmen square is fake!

What puzzles me about the Ark story is that I have this feeling it’s based very loosely on something that actually happened, but given its absurdity it’s impossible to figure out what. It’s just such a weird story that I don’t understand what the point of simply making it up out of whole cloth would be.

What puzzles me about the Ark story is that I have this feeling it’s based very loosely on something that actually happened, but given its absurdity it’s impossible to figure out what. It’s just such a weird story that I don’t understand what the point of simply making it up out of whole cloth would be.

No doubt some of mythology traces back into events that took place somewhere in the mists of prehistory. There were local floods due to ice age dams finally breaking, the Mediterranean or other large bodies of water breaking through to local low lying areas.

And no doubt there were humans around to pass on stories of these events in whatever forms they could be best remembered.

The sheer enormity of these events would have to be expressed somehow. What was enormous to them would be quite small compared to the much larger picture and experiences we have using our modern technology.

We already know that wooden boats that are purported to be the size of the ark are simply not physically capable of doing the job the story tells. Thus, some of the imagery of size and scale are very likely exaggerated. How would those people know what was physically possible? Just make it sound big and impressive.

There were no aircraft carriers for comparison. And even aircraft carriers are small in other contexts.